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Christopher Bowman, Skating Champion, Is Dead at 40

Christopher Bowman, a two-time United States figure skating champion acclaimed as a stylish, crowd-pleasing performer despite a long struggle with drug abuse, was found dead Thursday in North Hills, Calif., near Los Angeles. He was 40.

Bowman’s body was found by a friend at a motel, the police told The Associated Press.

Ed Winter, the assistant chief of the Los Angeles County coroner’s operations and investigations section, said in a telephone interview that a prescription drug had been found in Bowman’s room but that no illicit drugs had been found. He said that an autopsy might be performed Saturday, but that a final determination would probably require six to eight weeks of toxicology tests.

Mr. Winter said there were no signs of trauma and that the death could have been accidental or from natural causes.

Bowman captured the United States men’s singles championship in 1989 and 1992, and he won a silver medal at the 1989 world championships and a bronze the next year. He was seventh in the 1988 Calgary Olympics and fourth at the 1992 Albertville Games.

“If I had to pick the three most talented skaters of all time, I would pick Christopher as one,” the former Olympic champion Brian Boitano told The Chicago Tribune. “He had natural charisma, natural athleticism, he could turn on a crowd in a matter of seconds and he always seemed so relaxed about it.”

A former child actor, Bowman displayed a crowd-pleasing flair that brought him the nickname Bowman the Showman. But another part of his life — long rumored and denied while he competed — was reflected in the tattoo on his left shoulder with the words “Nobody’s Perfect.”

Bowman was quoted by the sportswriter Christine Brennan in her book “Inside Edge” (Scribner, 1996) as saying he had “a $950-a-day cocaine habit” while in his prime.

“I was heavily into cocaine use for over ten years,” he said. “I did everything. I mean, I was a human garbage pail. You name it and I would try it because to me, I was invincible.”

The absence of random drug-testing by skating authorities and Bowman’s ability to stop using drugs shortly before events, in anticipation of drug testing, kept him from being caught.

Photo

Christopher Bowman won the U.S. men's figure skating title in 1992.Credit
Marcy Nighswander/Associated Press

But Bowman took pride in what he saw as immense dedication to his sport, while never taking himself too seriously.

“I practiced 5,000 hours, to perform for four and a half minutes,” he told The New York Times in 1993. “I always worked very hard, but my approach was very different. I didn’t treat it as a do-or-die situation. I tried to emphasize the human side of it.”

Bowman grew up in the Los Angeles area and began skating at 5. His mother persuaded Frank Carroll, a leading coach, to give him lessons. “He had tremendous ability,” Carroll told People magazine in 1996. “And he looked like a toy-store doll. The perfect little child.”

While training with Carroll, Bowman acted in the TV show “Little House on the Prairie” and appeared in many commercials. But skating dominated, and he became a national junior champion in 1983.

Carroll had been frustrated with Bowman’s poor work habits and he was angered when Bowman improvised much of his long program at the 1990 world championships in Halifax, Nova Scotia, although he finished third.

Bowman faced troubles beyond the rink. In 1991, he reported being beaten and mugged in Toronto, the circumstances murky. In 1993, the police in Pittsburgh said he reported being beaten at a $26-a-night hotel while touring with the Ice Capades. In January 2005, he was sentenced to 18 months probation for possessing a gun while drunk.

Bowman had coached at Detroit-area skating clubs in recent years and returned to California early last year. At his death, he weighed an estimated 300 pounds, The Associated Press reported. He is survived by his mother, Joyce, and a daughter, The Detroit Free Press said. In April 1993, while skating to Wild West music in the Ice Capades, wearing a cowboy jacket with leather fringes, Bowman reflected on his ice-show skating style, and on his life as well.

“I’m somewhat of a personality,” he told The New York Times. “I cultivate that. People are not there to see my skating, but to see me. I don’t expect to be in an American Express commercial. I’d have to be the guy who lost his credit card.”

A version of this article appears in print on , on page B7 of the New York edition with the headline: Christopher Bowman, 40, Skating Champion, Dies. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe